Sunday, November 13, 2011

As of today I have input the results of the surveys from 10 classrooms. It is time consuming but quite interesting. At first I just typed numbers in but then of course I couldn't help but see patterns - patterns within a class, and patterns across the district. I have ended up making up some little summary sheets for each teacher just to point out some of the patterns.

So here are a couple of interesting things. I have put in the data for 10 classes -- 6 secondary and 4 middle school. I started to look at questions in each classroom where at least a quarter of the kids rated a 1 or 2. I have only eye balled things so far, not run the numbers through anything official but here are some of the interesting things.

1. Question 10: My strengths and talents were recognized in ____ or last year. Over a quarter of the kids in 9 of the 10 classrooms rated it is strongly disagree or disagree.2. Question 5: I was comfortable working with anyone in my classroom. Over a quarter of the kids in 7 classrooms rated this as strongly disagree or disagree -- which really influences feelings of community!3. Questions 11 and 12... my strengths and talents helped me perform, and I saw other students strengths and talents recognized.... Over a quarter of the kids in 5 of the 6 secondary classrooms rated it as strongly disagree or disagree.4. And in question 15: I was so excited/interested in some classroom assignments that I spent a long time working on them... 6 of the 10 classrooms had more than a quarter of the kids rate as strongly disagree or disagree.

We have lots of kids feeling confident and competent ... and able to learn new concepts successfully. We also have lots of kids with positive relationships with their teachers. How good is that? Overall, the survey ended up being much more interesting than I would have thought. The ones that are hard to input are the ones that fill their page with ones and twos -- and ending with a 1 or 2 for "There was at least one adult in the school that I could talk to." These are kids we are targeting. Hopefully with the work the teachers are doing in the project those kids will feel both more confident and more cared about.